


Mors certa, hora incerta

by cliniclyInsane189



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Nonbinary Character, Whump, Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma, is that how you tag 'someone used sleeping gas on you without your knowledge? bc yeah that's it'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26750320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cliniclyInsane189/pseuds/cliniclyInsane189
Summary: A 'player' of a 'game' wakes up in a room where they're to become witness to a very different 'game' - one that may not even come to pass.-Or, the SOIS agent known as 'Phoenix' gets 'invited' to 'observe' the Decision Game. Good times are had by absolutely no-one.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947934
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Mors certa, hora incerta

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Whumptober 2020 Day 1 prompt: ‘Let’s hang out some time’ - **Waking up restrained** | Shackled | Hanging.  
> My first time writing whump (at least, for a very _very_ long time, so I hope it turned out okay!
> 
> -  
> Anyway, welcome to a snapshot of my all-too extensive zero escape au where very little plot actually changes and I just have fun playing in a fascinating universe with a bunch of my own characters. And, despite what part of the summary may imply, this ends before the Decision Game begins.

It had been… Oh, quite a while, since Phoenix had woken like this. Slowly, painfully - a pounding in their head, a heaviness to their limbs, a bleariness to their gradually returning vision. They’d been drugged, of course, that much was obvious - they hadn’t drunk enough to get more than a little tipsy since university, let alone wake up feeling like this. And, well… Waking up from this particular brand of sedation left a very distinctive kind of mark on a person - it wasn’t an experience you forgot in a hurry, especially if it had happened _on multiple occasions_.

It was the same kind of mark that left them unable to wear a watch, lest they accidentally fall asleep and, of course, subsequently wake up wearing it. The same kind of mark that led to a few horrible moments of panic when they woke up on a boat or in a bunk-bed.

The sort of mark that may fade, but would never truly go away.

They shifted their head and immediately wished they hadn’t. _Fuck_ , that hurt. They stilled immediately, eyes squeezing shut so hard it sent sparks dancing in the dark behind their lids as a feeling of intense nausea swelled. How they hadn’t noticed _that_ as soon as they’d woken… It felt like someone had smacked them over the head with a pipe, or something.

Hit over the head _and_ drugged? Wasn’t that _just a little_ overkill?

They tried to move a hand to rub at their eyes but stilled again at the all too familiar bite of metal digging sharply into their wrists. 

Handcuffs. 

Of course.

.

They tried again to open their eyes; more slowly this time, and only to a squint.

The room they were in was unfamiliar, dimly lit (thankfully), and empty of anyone other than themself. There was very little in it that Phoenix could see from their current position (and in the current lighting) - just the chair they were sat on, a table with a blank monitor directly in front of them, a large, blank digital clock on the wall opposite them, one (visible) security camera in the far right corner and a door in the wall to their left. There were no windows. 

They let out a quiet sigh and tugged at their restraints, wincing at the sharp half-clattering-half-screeching noise of metal on metal that sent sharp spikes of pain through their head and a strange tingling sensation down their arms.

They were sat in a surprisingly comfortable office chair - either an oddly thoughtful gesture, or they’d just been stuck in the first room available. Given their probable captor’s propensity for forethought… It was likely the former, which was, in a way, _incredibly_ disturbing. Their hands were cuffed just behind them and to the sides - one pair of cuffs for each hand, the other end of each presumably fastened to a point behind the chair. There was only about an inch of leeway, meaning they couldn’t reach any of their pockets or bring their hands together. The angle, while not painful, was not a comfortable one to have your arms forced into. Already it was causing their shoulders and elbows to ache - they were not anticipating this to improve any time soon. The chair itself, Phoenix discovered, after a short bout of wriggling, was bolted to the ground, and their ankles were cuffed to the legs of the chair.

They stilled, letting their throbbing head fall back against the chair, ignoring the twinge from their head-wound, and trying to think. The process was something akin to grabbing at sand stirred up at the bottom of the sea in the pitch blackness, or to picking stray grounds out of your coffee. The last thing they remembered was… They’d been in the security room at DCOM. They’d… Hm… They’d been flicking through financial records, they thought, when things had started going hazy. Right, they must have dispersed an aerosol through the vents, since the facility had a closed ventilation system, that would have been the most efficient way of doing it.

But then, if they’d been drugged first, when had they been hit? Maybe they’d come to at some point, but couldn’t remember. That was likely - they wouldn’t put it past the bastard to use drugs with memory altering properties - he did like his mind games. Somehow, despite all their wariness and their (more limited) foreknowledge of the kind of situation they’d be walking into, they’d been taken totally off-guard. In retrospect, though, it had been a little too easy to get themself onto the rota for monitoring the participants on-site. That should have flagged something, but it had been just difficult enough to be convincing - by no means easy by any definition of the word, just _easier_ . _They_ should have realised, being the only one with any experience actually being a player in one of these fucked up head-games of his, rather than merely a participant. Once again, it seemed they’d been a step behind.

But then again, Phoenix mused, mind drifting as their eyes drifted shut, they had a few tricks of their own up their sleeves, a few different strategies they could bring to this endgame. This had been such a long, _long_ game, after all. They’d picked up some things along the way.

For now, though…

For now, all they could do was wait.

What they were waiting for, though… 

They frowned slightly, still halfway conscious, the knowledge seeping into their mind as a warm ache bled behind and through their eyes. It was a familiarly strange sensation, one they hoped never to get used to.

Whatever they were waiting for was still undecided and would be determined not by them, but by others. 

One other.

...

_One choice, made by one person._

_So for now, it seemed, their fate rested on a coin toss._

_A coin toss that determined whether their game ended now, with a forfeit, or if they continued to play just a bit longer._

**_Is it Red?_ **

**_Or Blue?_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!  
> If you want to chat, my main tumblr is h2o2coolingtubes, and my writing tumblr is h2-oh-fic.


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